Yoshinobu Yamamoto to Dodgers: Best memes and tweets as LA bags another superstar

The Los Angeles Dodgers are the new undisputed villains of MLB.

After signing Shohei Ohtani to an extremely team-friendly deal, the Dodgers landed the next best free agent available in Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Yamamoto and LA agreed to a 12-year contract on Thursday night, worth well more than the $300 million projected for the pitcher.

Best memes and and tweets after Yoshinobu Yamamoto signs with Dodgers

Dodgers fans embraced the hate on Twitter.

Meanwhile, fans of other teams embraced the prospect of sports doing what they do best: Being entirely unpredictable crapshoots.

The Dodgers have now spent more than $1 billion on two players in free agency, and that's not even accounting for the trade to pick up Tyler Glasnow plus the multi-year extension he received.

Considering how Ohtani deferred the bulk of his $700-million contract, Los Angeles could go out and add even more.

Of course, with great spending comes great expectations. The Dodgers are truly in World-Series-or-Bust mode. They will be the favorites to win it all going into the season. They will be expected to win the National League by a healthy margin. And failing to lift the World Series trophy at the end of it all will be seen as one of the biggest failures in the history of baseball.

This team will be judged not by winning one World Series either. With Ohtani, Yamamoto and Glasnow joining an already star-studded team including Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, the expectation will be to win multiple championships. No one in baseball has more pressure on them than this team going into the 2024 season. How they handle that will be fascinating to watch.

The next few years will be a dream and a nightmare for the rest of the league and Dodgers fans, depending on the many different outcomes that could follow.